


They Take the Cake

by BlackMajjicDuchess



Category: Original Work
Genre: Birthday Cake, Cake, Gen, Thievery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-28
Updated: 2015-10-28
Packaged: 2018-04-28 14:11:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5093642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackMajjicDuchess/pseuds/BlackMajjicDuchess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Heike and Lyda literally take the cake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	They Take the Cake

**Author's Note:**

> In a conversation with a friend about the novel I’m working on, we discussed names. I’m particularly fond of Lyda and Heike’s names, so I made the comment “Heike and Lyda take the cake.” 
> 
> This is what happened next.

Heike’s armor creaked as she shifted on the unforgiving wooden bench. Her eyes drifted over to the open door and narrowed to see the sun shining chipper-as-you-please. The birds chirped their morning birdsong, and in the spirit of the occasion, she tried not to dwell on the fact that one of the ‘chirping birds’ was a crow barking at the steaming gut pile she’d left sixty yards into the forest. Kirae reminded her constantly that such things were unseemly for holidays. Heike reminded her that Captain Whiskey’s day of birth was no one’s holiday. In fact, if anyone remembered to celebrate it, it usually meant that she was cursed with extra tasks.

Holiday, indeed. One man’s holiday was every woman’s inconvenience. 

Her sullen glare slid over to the only other occupant at the table. Lyda was brave enough not to shrink away at the concentrated aggressive attention, but she did momentarily forget to breathe. She couldn’t help thinking that perhaps her captain required her comment on the situation. She certainly seemed to be expecting something, and though Lyda didn’t have any answers, she wasn’t one to turn down a challenge, either. If Heike wanted an explanation, Lyda would provide explanation after explanation until Heike found one she liked. “Did you—I mean, did they know that it was today, at this hour?” She’d almost implied Heike might have been at fault for failing to provide the time and place to their prospective guests. That would have been a [fatal] rookie mistake. Whether or not it was true wouldn't have mattered once she was dead. 

Heike’s raised eyebrow and sour expression were answer enough. “ _You_ made it, didn’t you?”

Lyda wilted. “Should I go look for him?”

“Absolutely not,” she all but shouted with a decisive slice of her hand. “We will not go _gallivanting_ about the city to beg _any_ man—Captain or not—to _allow_ us to honor him. We have far too much pride for that.” She shook her head violently one time. “Absolutely not.” 

They went quiet. Lyda was at a loss for what to do in this situation. She’d had top notch training in tracking, hunting, poison distillation, hand to hand combat, ranged weapons, weather detection, and every other skill her father could think of that might come in handy in any life threatening instance. But she didn’t have an active protocol for “cousin forgot his own birthday.” Her fierce and prickly friend and captain had risked life and limb to bake on this occasion, and though the cake top had sunken a bit, Heike was smugly satisfied at the result of her hard work. It was the only time Lyda had ever seen her enjoy food preparation. 

Heike, on the other hand, was furious. Her mind churned out acerbic insults and profanity, compiling a list to have at the ready for the moment he walked in—if he _did_ walk in. She also spared a moment to remember how satisfied she’d been only a couple of hours ago when she’d gutted the deer the chirping bird now enjoyed. Perhaps the crow would have been better company. At least the crow knew not to miss a meal. “I told him there’d be cake,” she mumbled. 

She hadn't meant to say it aloud. Upon realizing she had, she paralyzed Lyda with a searing glance, then stabbed a finger toward her. “Not a word of this to anyone,” she commanded.

“Yes, Captain,” she replied meekly. 

Abruptly, Heike stood and stretched, steel plate glimmering in the sun’s rays. “Get up.” She gestured with one hand impatiently. Lyda stood. “Grab the cake.”

“Captain?”

“I said, ‘grab the cake!’ Grab the damned cake. Seems to me we’re done here.”

“But—“

She rounded on her subordinate and lowered her voice to a menacing whisper. “Grab the fucking cake, girl, and let's _go_.”

When your captain tells you grab the cake, you grab the fucking cake, particularly when your captain carries the ill repute of Heike—that was to say, highly volatile and prone to fits of violence at the drop of a hat. Lyda retrieved the cake. It was, all told, a well done cake. It smelled richly of chocolate and was coated in a smooth layer of icing. Lyda hadn’t had a chance to eat breakfast, and now that she was close enough to the cake, entertained illicit intentions toward the confection. She did think that the edible white chrysanthemum blossom was an odd choice for decoration, but when questioned about it, Heike insisted that it was only for its aesthetic. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense otherwise. 

It did _kind of_ make sense, though, if she thought a little more deeply. Most of the flowers they worked with were poisonous, and they’d had almost no practical use for edible flowers. That wasn’t their method. 

Heike caught her biting her lip and staring at the cake. She grinned. “I outdid myself on it,” she agreed. “And punctuality is oh so important, don’t you agree?”

Lyda saw already where this was going. “Punctuality _is_ virtuous,” she concurred. She nodded slowly. Her stomach snarled. If it hadn’t been contained within her person, it might have dragged the cake to a hidden corner of the tea house and devoured it in one bite. 

Heike crossed the dining area to the wide open front door. She placed both hands on the frame and leaned out with the creak of armaments. “Nope. Still not here!” she crowed. “Let’s go, Lyda.”

Lyda followed her captain out the door. The traveled the short distance to Heike’s minimalist home, careful to stick to the deer paths of the forest rather than the main roads. The entire way there, Heike let loose a string of curses that taught Lyda more than she’d ever need to know about how to rip someone a new asshole. Pledges of vengeance were made, threats of death were issued, and by the end of it, Lyda was certain that the veteran had quite lost her mind. 

But as Heike led her up the trellis and upon the roof of her small house, the tone of the adventure took a sunnier turn. They sat down across from each other. Heike’s gauntleted hand flailed between them in a hasty yet silent command to set the cake down. Then she tossed the chrysanthemum off the rooftop, drew a long knife from her belt, and sliced the cake right down the middle. Her smile was wolfish, and reminded Lyda of what an animal with a bone might be like. Woe betide the person who tried to get in between Heike and her cake _now_. “Happy birthday to us, then!” She grabbed her entire half of the cake and raised it in a salute to Lyda.

Lyda smiled her trademark tiny smile and followed suit. They toasted to their own health with Captain Tahrindale’s stolen—never gifted, really, so technically it wasn’t his—birthday cake, and indulged in one of the rarest commodities to have ever graced either of their tables in their twenty odd years of service. 

Chocolate. 


End file.
